Stuart Hunt

Interlend 2003, Cambridge, July 2003

The European Interlending Environment

Outline

Is there a European interlending environment?

Types of European ILL activity Objective or environmentally

conditioned problems?

“The shared use of individual library collections is a necessary element of international co-operation by libraries. Just as no library can be self-sufficient in meeting all the information needs of its users, so no country can be self-sufficient. The supply of loans and copies between libraries in different countries is a valuable and necessary part of the ILL process.”

International Lending and Document Delivery: Principles and Guidelines for Procedure, 2001 rev.

IFLA

Types of ILL activity

Regional Limited choice National Simple solutions

Continental Multiple choices Inter-continental Complex solutions

Planned vs unplanned decentralisation Regions vs library-to-library

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Centralised/distributed ILL

Centralised model May make doing international ILL easier

BUT slower & more costly

Distributed model Greater control over choice of service

Neither may be used exclusively Centralised collapses into distributed

Decline in central stock = increase in distributed ILL

Commercial/cooperative models

Commercial model Income generation Must break even

Cooperative model Ideological Service ethos Difficult to sustain long-term

Types of European ILL activity

Intra-European interlending Subito, Nordkvik, TEL (?)

Extra-European interlending OCLC ILL

Intra- and extra- European interlending BLDSC

Verbs

Discover Locate Request Deliver

Finding

Bibliographic Reliable citations/bibliographic data Where?/What sources? Union catalogue? OPAC(s)?

Holdings Discovery of location(s) Relation to bibliographic resource

Users

Things you may do to prevent them: No loans for things held locally

System Manual

Restrictions on service User status/type

Restrictions on max cost

Lenders

How to send request? In what format? e-mail, phone, fax, proprietary system, web-

form Who to? And how do you find their

contact details? Will they supply? Will they charge? If so, how much? Fill rate

Requesting from an unknown/untested source may result in low fill rates for borrowing = dissatisfied users

Payment

Free of charge or payment required? Can you comply with payment

method? IFLA vouchers Library credit cards € Banker/broker function by intermediary

service. e.g. OCLC IFM, Subito.

Legal

EU copyright directive Implementation across Europe not

consistent What is legal in one country may not be

legal in another e.g. use of Ariel & other scanning software

E-signatures

Success

Reciprocate? Success as a borrower = more work as a

lender All the questions you asked as a borrower

you need to ask yourself as a lender… Do we supply, do we charge, how, to whom,

etc. BUT being a supplier means income

generation to finance more borrowing … OR establishing favourable reciprocal agreements

Automating the verbs

Discover, Locate, Request, Deliver Z39.50, OpenURL, ISO ILL, NCIP

Will automate what you already do Will ease what the user has to do Machine-to-machine interaction

Standardised messaging/exchange of data

Standards

Require configuration Do standards help with what it is

difficult to do? Find new lenders outside of the known

Getting management information Disparate solutions = dispersion of data

across systems/platforms

Technology

Relationship between technology, services & environment Developing technology to meet service

requirements or modifying service to meet technology? ‘Road-building’

Historically conditioned Availability of funding

Summary

There is no European interlending environment

Micro level - Policy may arise out of practical success or failure Hybrid solutions that do not easily

translate from place to place Macro level – historically &

environmentally conditioned approaches National resources accessed/exploited by

international users

hunts@oclc.org